Take me to The Atlantic, demands The Husband. Well, I always try to oblige, especially on the eve of a birthday occasion, so our carefully planned and scripted route is modified to take this into consideration.
The Atlantic is later in in dispatches though, we have a lot to cover first. Starting at the Igreja dos Clérigos, one of the very important churches in Porto, we pay for the tower, although it must be noted that the Portuguese branch of Catholicism does not take the annoying capitalism route that España does - we’ve yet to pay for an entry into any church. The most intriguing thing here is access to all the back-stairs and corridors taking us around balconies and even high up behind the alter to view the congregation in ways normally reserved for the very special. Then we ascend the tower to take in a spectacular 360 of this hilly city and it’s incredible hill-side position. As we climb we’re delighted to run into a descending work colleague Leanne nearly at the top of the tower, exchange a catch-up and then continue to the upper level.
We note the “Harry Potter” wand shop from the tower, it’s actually a bookshop called Livraria Lello, and is the most ridiculous attraction, people queue for hours to get in, requiring the purchase of a €5 voucher to gain entry. I’m sure if one has a screaming child, that wait is a price worth paying, but we’re not going that extra mile. Later I get a picture through the door so check photos if you care.
Moving on with our packed schedule we visit Igreja do Carmo next, a wonderfully guilded small church, the university, and then Misericórdia, both the church and the museum. The former wasn’t particularly special apart from the tiled interior, the latter was a lovely museum fusing religion, medicine and art into one space (there’s a connection to all these) no wonder it’s nominated for international museum of the the year.
We then take our leave of our plans, in order to upend the schedule so later we can walk out of the city heading West. It’s not yet clear which bank we’ll do this on, but one way or the other etc ... I never give up on a challenge. We head briefly up to the theatre, which is closed anyway but we just HAVE to pay homage and then towards the more Easterly road bridge and cross this, with wonderful views back to Louis I, the metal bridge that most people see. We traverse the Pilar, this raised part of the South bank, where we can between two military enclosures and after checking out the Igreja da Serra do Pilar which is closed, we catch the cable car down the hill. Not because we can’t walk, just because I demand to do it this way! It brings us right next to the cruise terminal but first we do a quick port tasting in the area, and then find a converted market hall which is now a trendy food hall of sophisticated designer food outlets selling around two-dozen different stylish culinary choices. We opt for suckling pig sandwiches which were excellent, especially with a cool glass of beer.
Now we’re on the south bank we’re walking out of the town towards the coast. We know there’s one final bridge in 2 km, which carries a motorway across the Douro. We can’t tell from Google if it has a foot-passenger section (there’s a small path visible but no evidence of humans using it) so it’s a minor gamble, but worst case there could be a ferry or we will just turn back.
As it happens we zig-zag our way across a few ‘inappropriate’ patches of land and find that the path is the refuge lane and a lonely cyclist is using it to make his way, so we feel confident we’ll survive the crossing, as six lanes thunder close by. This bridge is VERY high, and right in the middle the view is wonderful. We later find this is the one that has bridge-climbing tours but now we’ve already done it so no point paying for that experience! We repeat our mountain-goat challenge to get down off the motorway, navigate a building site (hotel or apartments?) and then use a wiggly old cobbled lane to get back down to riverside. Then it’s just a half-hour to get right out as far as one can into the Atlantic wall where the two sections of the river’s mouth are closest.
We take a leisurely stroll back into town to get to the Balsa Palace in plenty of time for our pre-arranged tour. This place is fabulous, a bit like the HQ of the UK’s CBI or some similar organisation of commerce, it was also the stock exchange and business courts but these elements have now moved elsewhere. The rooms are splendid, culminating in a magnificent ballroom based on an Arabic theme - most spectacular.
28km, 17 miles or 38,000 steps it’s our second best of the holiday, we’ve earned a nice aperitif so return to our hotel’s courtyard café to have a lovely bottle and make a start on the photos - goodness me there’s going to be a lot today!! After a shower and change we return downstairs to the hotel’s VOGUE café which is, I presume, some sort of licensed arrangement, it works very well indeed. We have a lovey pre-birthday dinner, one of the best on this holiday so far. The waiting staff are as excellent as the chefs, and we feel very lucky to have this here. It’s high-time Leeds had a Vogue Café if anyone’s listening! On our after-dinner wander we get offered drugs - admittedly only dope - but for goodness sake do we look like pot-heads?
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